Chapter 2

Sang Luo pinched her now gaunt cheeks, feeling alive. What a wonderful thing!

Without further thought and not waiting for dawn, she dragged her weak body out of bed and headed towards the outer room.

She needed to find food. Sang Luo vividly remembered how the original body had starved to death. She was not willing to meet the same fate just after coming back to life.

Expectations are full, but reality is harsh.

She hadn't felt it while sitting on the bed, but as soon as she moved, the little energy left in her body rapidly depleted. Her stomach quickly shifted from empty to mildly painful. After just a few steps, her vision began to blacken.

Sang Luo knew this was due to extreme lack of food in her stomach, low blood sugar, and insufficient blood flow to her brain. If she didn't eat soon, she was at risk of sudden death.

She was only thankful that the hut was small.

Following the original owner's memory, Sang Luo stumbled towards the clay pot stored in the corner of the room.

The burst of potential energy allowed her, who was barely able to walk, to lift the pot to her mouth. Her lips brushed against a chipped part of the pot, the brief pain soon overwhelmed by the agony in her stomach and the body's desperate craving for food. The metallic taste of blood diluted in the pot's cool water, rolling down her throat into her stomach.

She drank greedily, her mind telling her to stop, but her swallowing reflex not slowing down, seemingly endless.

The wooden door creaked open, and a soft, surprised child's voice came through.

"Big sister, you're awake?!"

Sang Luo's consciousness finally emerged from the frenzy of desperate eating. She put down the pot and turned to look at the speaking child.

Shen Ning, the younger sister of the twins, stood by the door, apparently just back from outside.

Right, there was only one bed in the hut. When she had first traveled here, dazed and dominated by hunger, Sang Luo hadn’t noticed that the two children were not in the hut in the middle of the night.

Of course, she couldn’t worry about that now. The cold water she had drunk too quickly seemed to seep into her soul, making Sang Luo so uncomfortable that she couldn’t remain squatting. She fell to the ground with a "thud", spilling most of the water from the pot onto her clothes, while the pot itself rolled away.

Trembling, Sang Luo leaned against the mud wall, gasping for breath. The discomfort was even worse than before she drank the water.

Shen Ning, startled by her fall, rushed over, “Big sister, what's wrong with you?”

While asking, she tried to help Sang Luo up.

However, although Shen Ning was nine years old, she was born during the famine escape without her mother and raised by her uncle and aunt, never having enough to eat. These past two years without her brother, Mrs. Li was even more frugal with food. After separating from the family and living on the mountain with Sang Luo for three months, enduring scant meals and even days without food, she was no bigger than a six or seven-year-old child.

A true image of a little refugee, she was unable to lift the fifteen-year-old Sang Luo.

Shen Ning tried her best but couldn't move her elder sister-in-law, growing so anxious that her eyes reddened.

Sang Luo shook her head, signaling her to save her strength, and after a pause said, “I'm just hungry, Ah Ning, can you... can you help your sister boil some hot water?”

Hot water was the only thing they could consume in their home now if the water in the pot hadn’t all spilled out in the fall.

Shen Ning nodded repeatedly, wiping her tears as she went to pick up the clay pot from the ground.

The floor of the hut was made of dirt, and the pot had rolled over it, leaving only a bit of water at the bottom. Not minding whether the rim of the pot was clean or not, Shen Ning hurriedly carried it to the stove near the table.

The stove was actually just a simple structure made of a few stones piled together. At that moment, she placed the chipped clay pot, usually used for storing water and cooking, atop it.

This pot served as both a water jug and a cooking pot. Besides the three bowls, it was the only usable container in the house.

Despite her young age, Shen Ning was adept at chores. She lit the fire and boiled water without any hesitation, looking quite capable if it weren't for the occasional wiping of tears.

Her big sister-in-law was ill with hunger, a fact Shen Ning was painfully aware of, especially today when her condition worsened. Shen Ning and her brother couldn't get any food from their uncle’s house. When they brought the wild vegetable soup to their sister-in-law, she couldn’t even swallow it.

The siblings were terrified. They didn't dare sleep tonight, staying beside the bed. Only when their sister-in-law’s complexion turned grayer and her breathing weaker did they run out in the middle of the night to find a solution.

Find a solution!

Suddenly remembering something, she turned and pulled out a handful of pale red wild berries from her pocket, holding them up to Sang Luo: "Big sister, I found some ground berries. Eat these quickly."

After realizing Sang Luo was still trembling, she placed the berries in her palm and tore one open, bringing it to Sang Luo’s mouth.

The strong aroma of the fruit filled the air. Sang Luo instinctively swallowed and, looking down at the torn fruit in Shen Ning's hand, realized they were ground loquats.

Instinctively, without a second thought, Sang Luo opened her mouth eagerly, swallowing the wild fruit handed to her by the little girl, skin and all.

Sang Luo had lived in the mountains for five years before her time travel and was no stranger to ground loquats, but this was the first time she ate them with such desperation and urgency.

The aunt and niece duo, one feeding and the other eating, went through seven fruits. When Shen Ning tore open the last one and brought it to Sang Luo’s mouth, she finally resisted the urge and turned her head away, “You eat this one.”

Sang Luo had the memories of her former self. She knew how terribly hungry the original owner had been, and these two children hadn't fared much better.

Shen Ning's tears had not stopped since she saw Sang Luo wake up. Her face, dirty like a spotted cat washed away in streaks by her tears, was a mix of crying and smiling, “Big sister, eat.”

Then she pushed the last piece of fruit into Sang Luo’s mouth.

The fruit was sweet as honey. The nourishment and sweetness brought a momentary relief to her nearly collapsing body, at least alleviating the blackening of her vision.

Sang Luo sat there on the ground, not moving, conserving her strength.

She asked Shen Ning, “Did you go out in the middle of the night just to find food for me? Where did you find these?”

It was impossible to find anything edible near their grass hut. Although the original owner was born into a common family and lived a sheltered life, the journey fleeing famine had made her familiar with various wild vegetables and fruits. Since moving to the Shen family and experiencing months of hardship, most edible things nearby had been foraged. Now, even finding wild vegetables required traveling quite a distance.

“I went towards the western side of the village, near the mountains. Couldn’t find much, just these few fruits.”

Ground fruits are delicious, and every year when they ripen, both adults and children in the village pay attention, searching wherever the vines are seen. It’s rare to find any left in the outer fields and mountain edges.

Sang Luo sighed, “You’re really too bold.”

Shen Ning hung her head, “I took a stick to ward off the grass and didn’t go deep, just around the edge of the mountain.”

The little girl, feeling guilty, quickly turned to check on the water in the pot, afraid of being scolded by her sister-in-law.

Sang Luo, with the memories of her former self, understood the reason. The vast mountains behind Shi Li Village were intimidating even near the village edges. The children were usually forbidden from venturing deep into the mountains, let alone at night to look for wild fruits.

But she also knew that the child had dared to venture out at night in search of food entirely for her sake, or rather, for the sake of her former self. Thus, she didn’t say anything more and instead asked, “Where’s Xiao An?”

Shen An, the brother in the pair of twins.

The siblings were usually inseparable, but now, after quite a while, only Shen Ning had returned, with no sign of Shen An.

Shen Ning’s shoulders slumped, “Second brother went to ask Uncle Shen for some grain.”

……

In the dead of night, the courtyard door of the Shen house was being loudly banged on, interspersed with occasional calls of Shen An for his uncle.

Inside, Uncle Shen and Mrs. Li had already been awakened by the noise.

Uncle Shen, restless, had listened for a while and was about to get out of bed when Mrs. Li stopped him firmly, “Don’t go. It’s been over half a month; when have those two not come to borrow grain? They say borrow, but do they ever return it? Now they’ve even started coming at night when they can’t get it during the day.”

Uncle Shen’s hand, lifting the blanket, paused as he whispered, “But we can’t just ignore them. If something serious happens from hunger... we’ll be criticized by the villagers.”

Mrs. Li scoffed, her expression steady, “Don’t worry. I gave them food the day before yesterday. I’m aware of the situation. We’ve already divided the household; I can’t keep indulging them with full meals, but they won’t starve to death. With floods and droughts in the north, our southern part is better off. Despite some impact, you can still find wild vegetables and fruits in the mountains. Can people really starve to death here?”

Uncle Shen’s hesitation gradually faded.

Mrs. Li concluded, “Alright, let them come tomorrow morning, and I’ll give them some food. But that Sang woman is really useless. We brought her here hoping she would take care of Shen An and Shen Ning. Now she can't handle anything. Had I known, I would have chosen someone capable of working.”

Her voice lowered on the last sentence. In truth, having escaped from the north to here meant surviving the hardest times. Buying another person now would not be cheap.

Even though Mrs. Li wanted to offload the burden, she was unwilling to spend several silver taels to do so. With that money, she could support the two children for a year or two.

Therefore, even if there were other options, she would still choose Sang Luo, who didn’t sell herself into servitude but could be brought in as a niece-in-law for just half a bag of grain.

Uncle Shen was uninterested in this talk, merely nodding and saying, “As long as you have a plan. But don’t be too strict with every little thing. Gaining a reputation for being heartless could affect our life in the village later on.”

What mattered most was that he still felt somewhat guilty; after all, his elder brother's only remaining bloodline were these two children.

The couple exchanged a few words and then let the matter go. They ignored Shen An knocking on the door outside, pretending not to hear and went back to bed.